One of the beautiful things about doing coverage for cult
cinema is that one gets to dig into the lost films. Films that are forgotten,
overlooked pieces of ambitious and often edgy material. Sometimes they are
forgotten for legitimate reasons, but sometimes they seem to be forgotten
simply because they didn’t make a splash in the historical placement of film. Suture is one of those forgotten films,
perhaps due to its lacking foundations as a film, but it’s one that carries
such a strangely fantastical concept and an artful approach to it that it seems
shocking that it hasn’t been one mentioned more often in the cinephile circles.
The film is flawed, as many debut features from ambitious film makers are, but
it’s something of an intriguing experience and one that more artful cinephiles
will want to take another look at – particularly with this new Arrow Video Blu
Ray that really presents it in such a strong manner. If anything, Suture is the
kind of cult cinema that deserves to be uncovered…warts and all.

Clay (Haysbert) has traveled to Phoenix to meet with his half-brother
Vincent (Harris). The two are identical twins, but their personalities couldn’t
be more different. Due to an investigation that has Vincent paranoid, he plans
to kill his brother, whose existence is something of a family secret, as a way
to fake his own death. Things do not go according to plan though and Clay is
left scarred from an explosion and lacking no memory of who he is and he’s
forced, by situation, to take the identity of his brother.

Eye patches are badass.

Suture is the kind
of film that is meant to be an experience. Visually, aurally, and conceptually, Suture crafts this
intriguing atmosphere of artful deliberation. It’s a film meant to be utterly
black and white in concept, where even the identical twin brothers of its story are black and white in skin color although the film makes it very clear that the
audience is wrong in distinguishing them as such, but nothing is actually black
and white and everything rests with the grays of its narrative approach. The film litters
itself with black and white aesthetics including the film used, clothes, an ink
blotch painting in the doctor’s office, and the contrast of bright Arizona days
and the deeps darks of its nights, yet the concept is anything but black and white
as it crafts an identity thriller where memories haze together, lives meld, and
one man’s self-awareness fizzles. Even the music is meant to contrast and
create those kinds of dynamics with bare percussion at times that leads into
robust layered classical music. Suture is a kind of film that appeals in that
artistic sense as it crafts some visually impressive and aurally dynamic beats
worthy of its independent cinema feel.

However, as a thriller Suture
is a bit flawed. It owes a lot of its strengths to its throwback style to 60s
film, but it lacks a bit of the plot and character build to lift it out of being
just an artful narrative experience. The performances are strong all the way
around, including a memorable performance from Haysbert who has to carry a lot
of the subtle strength of the film, but the film doesn’t write in a lot of
backing to give the audience a deeper connection to Clay that’s needed to
really hit home with the emotional journey that he must take with his identity
crisis. At times, this seems intentional considering the subtle and simplistic
approach that it takes to its script, but it undercuts some of the stronger
emotional impacts that the film could have had. It makes for some intriguing
moments, including how quickly the film seems to rush through its ending to
wrap things up like its romantic subplot, but it leaves the film feeling cold
and almost metallic. This in turn leaves the audience feeling the same way.

Bath time can be violent occasionally.

However, despite my own issues with the depth of the film, Suture is something that
should be explored by fans of cult cinema. It has a lot of fascinating aspects
to its style and approach, some of which will surely strengthen with time to
digest them and tease them out, and the Arrow Video has a lot of strong special
features that allow viewers to dig deeper into the film including slick half hour
documentary about the making of the film. It’s not perfect, but for a debut
film it’s whole heartedly ambitious and it deserves to be seen for that.

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Osaka Asian Film Festival 2018

Welcome To Blood Brothers!

Here at Blood Brothers we, cult fan brothers Eric and Matt, are dedicated to bringing reviews to some of the worlds best (and worst, depending on your taste) cult like films from around this large globe. Whether it be Horror, Science Fiction, Kung Fu, or any other cult like genre - we are your first and last stop for all your review needs. Unapologetically kvlt.

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